erica + hayden + "hospital"
au, everyone lives, erica is an alpha bc she won the fight against kali to save boyd, scott is also an alpha bc duh, basically happy vibes only in beacon hills tysm
“I hate being here. Gives me kidney phantom pains.”
Hayden’s voice is quiet, but it echoes in the stillness of Erica’s car all the same. Erica can hear the anxious thrum of Hayden’s heartbeat and it makes her smile sadly, looking down at her hands.
They used to tremble as a side effect from her seizure meds. They don’t do that anymore.
“I remember the smell of it,” Erica says, laying back in her seat. After a quick glance into the rearview to make sure Scott isn’t on his way out with Mason, she takes a breath and continues. “I think the scent was actually stronger before I was bitten.”
“Right?” Hayden cuts in, sitting up straighter. “What is that?”
Laughing, Erica shrugs. “I don’t know. But it stayed with me, even when I’d leave. I’d taste blood before my seizures, but. I’d smell the hospital hallways, too.”
“Is that why you took the bite?” Hayden asks. “No more seizures?”
Erica’s smile softens a bit. She keeps her heartbeat even as she replies, “Yeah. But there were lots of reasons.”
She looks into the rearview again at the sound of Scott’s footsteps, watching as he guides Mason - arm newly wrapped in a cast that they’re definitely all signing later - toward the parking lot.
“Do you regret it? Being bitten?” Hayden asks.
Erica meets Hayden’s eyes, her irises flashing red for a beat. “No. But - I think I trusted Derek to fix me the same way a doctor would have, and that wasn’t - he just wasn’t ever going to be that kind of Alpha.”
Scott’s only a few steps from the car, well within earshot, but Erica continues, “Your Alpha is that kind of Alpha. Just so we’re clear.”
Hayden’s mouth quirks up at the corner. She can see Scott with a hand on Mason’s shoulder, veins just barely darkening beneath his skin. It makes the wolf in her mind, the one that’s still too new and too wild, settle completely.
“Yeah, he is. M’sorry you didn’t get that, too.”
“S’okay,” Erica replies, and it is. She’s had years to deal, years to berate Derek for his choices, years to forgive him for them. “I got there eventually.”
The back door opens and Mason slides into the seat. “You guys don’t have to send a werewolf rescue party every time I need a ride. I just broke my arm. No big.”
Hayden snorts. “Oh, whatever. You’re so excited I can smell it on you. You reek, Mason.”
“And we want first dibs on signing the cast,” Erica adds.
Scott huffs out a laugh. “He wants us each to claw our names into it.”
“Your cast won’t work if it’s ripped to shreds,” Erica points out.
“But it would be so cool!” Mason argues. “Just picture it, okay…”
